THE ROLE OF MERIT IN NATION BUILDING

THE ROLE OF MERIT IN NATION BUILDING

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

 

If human beings are given equal opportunities, each person would develop the capacity that would make him or her excel with vocational or professional fulfilment. It is not enough to do any job just to have food on the table. Working for survival is an indication of a failed society. What can give renaissance to a nation is a free space for self-actualization in the field where each person can excel in production, discovery research and management of resources. No job is useless as long as there is passion for the work with adequate remuneration. I have seen wonderful tailors who make suits in Nigeria with a label “Made in London”. Many shoe makers in Nigeria make wonderful shoes and showcase their products with the label, “Made in Italy.” How I wish that even the artisans can be encouraged to be proud of who they are with what they can produce! If the government at all levels have the political will to provide an enabling environment for private and public industries, the nation will reap the fruit of merit at the expense of favoritism, nepotism, ethnicity and religious bigotry. 

 

Given the natural and human resources in our nation, we can transform the world with the virtue of justice and good governance that could provide social amenities to enhance human capacity to produce qualitative goods and services. If we have leaders, managers and entrepreneurs who provideopportunities based on merit and efficiency, it would not be difficult to identify the capacity and divine dignity that is infused in each human person. If merit, efficiency, and proficiency of each person in a particular discipline and area of production is enabled, the world would be transformed into paradise. The human person is unambiguously endowed by God with sufficient grace and capacity (Genesis 1:29-30; Surah al-An'am, 6:165). This is why a person can know and comprehend God (Romans 1:19-20; Acts 14: 15-17; Wisdom 13:1-9; Surah al-A'raf, 7:172). The grace of God dwells in humanity (Genesis 1:28; Surah as-Sajdah, 32:7-9). God created each person for a unique purpose hence you must not seek to be another person.There is only one “YOU” created by Almighty God to be somebody special in life. Trying to be somebody else brings much sorry hence many people who desire only wealth and power live in pains. Money and fame cannot buy happiness. Joy is the fruit of interior fulfilment that emanates from contentment.

 

The creation of man and woman are not accidental. God willed the existence of humanity as a divine choice hence he created us freely to live in freedom (Galatians 5:13; Surah Ta Ha 20:122). According to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, “God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully. As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God. But insofar as any created things hinder our progress toward our goal, we ought to let them go(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3256-god-freely-created-us-so-that-we-might-know-love). 

 

Man or woman has the freedom to choose between prosperity and misery (Surah al-Ahzab, 33:72). The dignity and nobility of the human person is made manifest through his cordial relationship with God, humanity and nature (Surah Bani Israil, 17:70). Every person has the moral obligation to know what is good and what is evil (Surah ash-Shams, 91:7 - 8). Joshua told the people to choose between God and material things. He told the people that with his household, they shall worship the Lord(Joshua 24:14-15). The option for God made Saint Augustine to pray: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you” (Augustine, Confessions). It is only a sincere attachment to God that can give true satisfaction (Surah al-Ra'd, 13:28). Union with God gives a person the wisdom to discern what God has sent him or her to do in the world in the form of vocation and profession. Every human being is given a unique gift by God to build up a happy community (Romans 12). No one single person has all the gifts. The effort to actualize our potentials gives merit to what we have the capacity to do. This is why God have variety of gifts which he gives to each human being to enhance the one body (1 Corinthians 13). 

 

The parable of the talents is an illustration of how human beings should use the gifts God has given to them on earth in preparation for happiness here and hereafter (Matthew 25:14-30). Everybody cannot be President, Governor, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Chief of Army Staff, Bishop, Chief Imam, Sultan, Emir, Oba, etcetera but everybody can excel and be content in his or her vocation and profession. Let us imagine this fiction as a true story. “Once upon a time, a young man wanted to enroll as a Cadet (ASP) in Nigeria Police. On resumption, all cadets went through certificate screening and verification. They produced university degrees but 95% of the cadets from a privileged zone of the country could not produce their certificates. The Commandant who is an AIG from another zone was surprised and threatened to send those without certificates home. Immediately, he received an official query and was informed that he should concentrate on training the cadets without screening their certificates. He was told that the Force Headquarters had already screened the cadets and all were certified to be enrolled without certificates. The cadets from the privileged zone were told that they do not require a Secondary School Certificate with five credits to get into University talk less of becoming a police officer. At last, most of the officers from the privileged Zone who could not pass the examinationswere made Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) and several of them turned out to be Command Commissioners.” 

 

Can this provide a better policing in any nation? With what intelligence, strategy and capacity would the police officers combat insecurity? How can these officers who would have excelled in their real calling and not the Police keep the nationfree from crime, corruption and insecurity? Why are some Military and Police officers arrested as kidnap suspects and other criminal related offences? Could it be that they have answered a wrong vocation or profession just because they had a godfather who pushed them out of their real calling to a false vocation? Would it not be hell for the innocent citizens of the nation if these officers are dismissed after their training in the use of arms? In the words of Saint Paul to Timothy, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all Godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:1-8). May God enlighten our minds to know that merit has a role to play in nation building! May God provide jobs for the qualified applicants who roam the streets because they have no godfathers to give them recommendation letters. May God deliver us from the syndrome of “not what you know” but “who you know!” 

 

Rev. Fr. Cornelius Omonokhua is the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) (nirec.ng@gmail.com)

THE PAINS OF HOME COMING

THE PAINS OF HOME COMING

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

 

Before the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, slavery was practised in ancient Egypt from about 1550-1175 BC. The enslaved Israelites never returned to the same land from where they migrated to Egypt. God promised them another land that was flowing with milk and honey. Home coming was not easyand realistic for the Israelites especially for Moses who led the people out of Egypt. As if slavery was natural to Africa, some African empires got involved in Child slavery to pay debts or earn money to survive. The African slaves were captured by Africans during inter-tribal wars. For some African traditional rulers, Intra-African slave trade was a big and lucrative business. This gave rise to the middle passage of triangular trade where African slaves were bought and transported to Europe and America. The Atlantic slave trade defined the movement of slaves from Africa to Europe for a long period of time through the Atlantic Ocean. During this long voyage millions of Africans died as a result of diseases like dysentery, scurvy, smallpox, syphilis, and measles. There was no good food and portable water. Some slaves died out of depression and nostalgia for their native homes. Those who managed to escape were called contrabands. They were recaptured to work for the Union Army.The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501. By the 18th century, the peak of the Atlantic Slave trade was marked by raiding the interior of West Africa. In 1619, a Dutch Ship transported twenty Africans to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia (https://www.google.com/search).

 

After so many years of human trafficking and slave trade, Maximillian Robespierre led the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804) that abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies on 4th February, 1794. In 1833, Slaverywas abolished in most of the British Empire through the campaign of William Wilberforce who died just three days after hearing that the passage of the Act through Parliament was assured. On 25th March, 1807 the Abolition of the Slave TradeAct received its royal assent, abolishing the slave trade in the British colonies and making it illegal to carry enslaved people in British ships. Even when on 25th March, 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act entered the statute books, trafficking between the Caribbean islands continued until 1811. With thepassage of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, slavery wasabolished. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on 8th April, 1864, and by the House on 31st January,1865.   On 1st February, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation. In January 1863 the Joint Resolution of Congress had submitted the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. Lincoln paid with his life when John Wilkes Booth fatally shot him (https://www.google.com/search).

 

Great Britain in colonial Nigeria waged the campaign to abolish the internal slave trade in the Bight of Biafra and its hinterlandfrom 1885 to 1950. Mauritania became the last Africa nation to abolish the slave trade in 1981 with a presidential decree without passing criminal laws on slave dealers to enforce the ban. It was only in 2007, "under international pressure", the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted. Despite being illegal in every nation, slavery is still present in several forms today (https://www.google.com/search). Having freed the slaves, the pain and chance of ever seeing their native land was deep. Many did not even know their roots given that their fathers and mothers have died. The African slaves who gained freedom from America were settled in a place called Christo polis that was renamed Monrovia after the American President, James Monroe. The colony as a whole was formally called Liberia in 1824 and was granted independence in 1847 from the United States of America. Unfortunately, Liberia, the oldest republic in Africa was engulfed in a terrible civil war that started in 1990 and this affected Sierra Leone and others around them.

 

Haiti and Sierra Leone are other West Africa States that were founded by former slaves of Great Britain. In 1787, British philanthropists founded the “Province of Freedom” which later became Freetown, a British crown colony and the principal base for the suppression of the slave trade. By 1792, 1,200 freed slaves from Nova Scotia joined the original settlers, the Maroons. Descendants of the freed slaves who settled in Sierra Leone between 1787 and 1792, are called the Creoles. The Creoles play a leading role in the city, although they are a minority of the overall Sierra Leone population. During World War I, Freetown became a base for operations of British forces in the Atlantic (https://www.google.com/search). From this historical narrative, it is evident that a lot of families in Liberia, Haiti and Sierra Leone could have been natives of Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan, South Africa and other African countries where slaves were captured and exported to Europe and America. This is why it is very sad and painful that Africans are still fighting and killing fellow Africans. What a deep sword in the heart of Africa? Oh Africa, unite and let the sun rise upon you!

 

Many African nations are now evacuating their citizens from South African. Citizens of different countries in Africa who survived death in the desert and Atlantic Ocean in the efforts to escape the hardship of their native countries to Europe and America to seek greener pastures are being deported home. The Federal Republic of Nigeria ordered the immediate evacuation of all Nigerians who are willing to return home from South Africa following the xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals. It has been disclosed that 640 Nigerians in South Africa had registered to return home following the willingness of the Federal Government to evacuate them to safety (https://guardian.ng/news/buhari-orders-evacuation-of-nigerians-from-south-africa). Once upon a time, it was evacuation of slaves from Europe and America. In our own time it is evacuation of African nationals from Africa to their native African countries. 

 

The early generations of African slaves were comfortable in their native homes. They never wished to leave home and they never thought that one day, they would sing: “Home my home, home my home, when shall I see my home, when shall I see my native land, I shall never forget my home!” Unfortunately, they never saw the native home of their dreams again. The African slaves of the present century were forced out of their homes by lack of social amenities and all that is required for healthy and fulfilled living. They left their homes to source for better opportunities elsewhere because those who are talented andhoped to actualize their latent potentials had their dreams killed and aborted by the leadership and structural injustice of their various countries. So they escaped or travel to wherever life could give them meaning. This is a wakeup call by South Africa: “To your native tents oh Africans!” The pain of this home coming is to go back to a home where they would be victims of kidnaps, terrorism, rape, unemployment, lack of electricity, bad roads, insecurity, corruption, greed and less hope for the future. May this call for a painful home coming inspire every African country to make available all that is required to make our people stay and work at home. On us Oh Lord have mercy, and grant us your salvation!

Rev. Fr. Cornelius Omonokhua is the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) (nirec.ng@gmail.com)